Mlle. Sanua’s plan too is for a new woman in commerce who shall be a money power and a world power. And perhaps it may be France that is temperamentally fitted to lead all lands in achieving that ideal. The _jeune fille_, so carefully trained for domesticity only, has been known to develop wonderful business qualities after marriage. Invariably in the small shops of France it is Madame who presides at her husband’s cash drawer. A woman’s hand has led industries for which France is world famous: Mme. Pommerey whose champagne is chosen by the epicure in every land, Mme. Paquin whose house has dictated clothes for the women of all countries, and Mme. Duval whose restaurants are on nearly every street corner of Paris. The commercial instinct is really latent in every French woman. There is scarcely a French household in which a husband making an investment of any kind does not first consult with his wife. This birthright then, why not develop it by training and add scientific knowledge to intuition? That was the proposition with which the French Minister of Commerce was approached at the beginning of the war. It was his own daughter who came to the Bureau of State over which he presided, with a new programme. Mlle. Valentine Thomson is the editor of _La Vie Feminine_, in whose columns she had already advocated wider business opportunities for women on the ground that France would have need of women in many new capacities. Now she came to ask that the High Schools of Commerce throughout the land should be opened to girls. Hitherto they had been exclusively for boys. The Minister of Commerce took the matter under consideration. The argument that girls should be prepared for responsibilities that every year of war would more surely bring to them sounded to him logical enough. Besides Mlle. Valentine Thomson is a daughter with a most pretty and persuading way, a way that is as helpful to a feminist as to any other woman. So it happened that the Minister of Commerce, in September, 1915, issued a circular recommending the opening of the national Schools of Commerce to women. The Ministry could only recommend. Each Chamber of Commerce could ultimately decide for its own city. And there were but three cities in which the final court of authority refused, Paris, Lyons and Marseilles.